A worker at a swank Chelsea food shop had four fingers severed in a terrifying meat-grinder accident yesterday, cops said.

The panic-stricken employee got his right hand caught in the industrial meat grinder around 10:30 a.m. as he pushed a slab of beef into the mouth of the stainless-steel electrical machine at the popular Garden of Eden gourmet market on 23rd Street near Seventh Avenue.

According to Detective Ralph Logan, the worker got all but his thumb caught in the auger, a corkscrew-shaped instrument that grabs the meat and pushes it through to the grinder blades.

The injured man, who may not have been using a protective plunger to insert the meat, tried desperately to extricate his hand from its metal jaws, but to no avail.

“The man was writhing in pain,” said Logan. “He was screaming. He was already showing signs of shock.”

“We tried to calm him down. There was a woman, a co-worker, and she was panic-stricken.”

Logan and his partner, Ray Neuman, said they worked feverishly to free the man’s blood-soaked hand.

Logan said the man’s four fingers had been chopped off at the knuckle.

He said the man’s digits had not been completely mangled because they had not gone through the actual grinder blades.

Logan said they recovered the fingers and placed them in a bag of ice.

The injured worker and his detached fingers were rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where doctors would determine if they could be reattached.

“I’ve seen blood before, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” said the veteran detective. “This happens more often than you think.”

Logan who’s been a cop for 14 years, said his Emergency Service Unit training in this type of incident proved helpful.